Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said it’s important to work with the Muslim community to prevent the types of terrorist attacks that have been happening in this country from continuing to occur.
“It’s not about spying on law-abiding people. It’s about being able to get ahead of a plot before it happens,” Rubio told CBS Miami’s Jim DeFede.
“I do believe that we need to do more work, including in the Muslim American community — to identify radicalism, and to fight against it. And we’ll need the cooperation of the patriotic Muslim Americans, and there are many.”
Rubio said he thinks Muslim Americans are cooperating in “many cases.”
He referenced the terrorist attack in Orlando, Fla., earlier this year as an example.
“One of the reasons why the killer, the terrorist in Orlando, came on the FBI’s radar is because a gentleman at the Islamic center he was attending tipped the FBI off to him, so there’s no doubt that there are,” said the Florida senator who is up for reelection after ending his presidential bid earlier this year.
“And then there are other places where I think it’s become more difficult, but in the end I think that’s a big part of it, both here and around the world.”
In this country, Rubio said the ideology of radical Islam needs to be delegitimized. He noted Muslims will also “play a key role” in that.
“But the biggest thing we can do is to take out the ability of groups like [the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] to have a core of operation anywhere in the world,” Rubio said, “because it is from Mosul, it is from Barakah, where they have their core operation that allows them to disseminate propaganda, which, in the end, is what causes and inspires people around the world to take action against us.”
Rubio won his primary earlier this month, and recent polls show him leading against Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy.